I stared through the kitchen window at Greg kneeling in the dirt.<\/p>\n
There are moments when fear arrives dramatically, and there are moments when it comes as a quiet rearrangement of ordinary facts. A missing blanket. A husband leaving bed. A whispered declaration of love. A hole in the ground.<\/p>\n
Individually, each could have meant almost nothing.<\/p>\n
Together, they were terrifying.<\/p>\n
I opened the back door.<\/p>\n
\u201cGreg.\u201d<\/p>\n
He spun around.<\/p>\n
The shovel struck the wooden garden border with a sharp crack, and dirt scattered across his pajama pants.<\/p>\n
\u201cLaura!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat are you doing?\u201d<\/p>\n
His eyes widened. \u201cKeep your voice down.\u201d<\/p>\n
That answer did not improve the situation.<\/p>\n
I stepped onto the cold patio stones. \u201cYou disappear from our bed in the middle of the night, I hear you talking to somebody downstairs, and now you\u2019re digging in the backyard. Why exactly should I keep my voice down?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause you\u2019ll frighten her.\u201d<\/p>\n
I stopped.<\/p>\n
\u201cHer?\u201d<\/p>\n
Greg looked at the bundle in his arm.<\/p>\n
The blanket moved.<\/p>\n
Every thought in my head vanished.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat is that?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLaura\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShow me.\u201d<\/p>\n
He hesitated.<\/p>\n
\u201cGreg.\u201d<\/p>\n
Slowly, he folded back one corner of the blue blanket.<\/p>\n
A tiny gray face emerged.<\/p>\n
Two dark, irritated eyes looked up at me.<\/p>\n
I stared.<\/p>\n
The creature opened its mouth and produced a squeak so small it barely seemed capable of coming from anything alive.<\/p>\n
\u201cA kitten?\u201d<\/p>\n
Greg nodded.<\/p>\n
I looked at the animal, then at him, then at the hole.<\/p>\n
\u201cA kitten.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou were downstairs saying \u2018Daddy loves you\u2019 to a kitten?\u201d<\/p>\n
His expression suggested that, stated that way, his behavior might indeed require some explanation.<\/p>\n
The kitten squeaked again.<\/p>\n
Greg immediately lowered his face toward it. \u201cYou\u2019re okay.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then, even more softly, he added, \u201cSusan.\u201d<\/p>\n
I blinked.<\/p>\n
\u201cSusan?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou named her Susan?\u201d<\/p>\n
He shifted uncomfortably.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter my mother.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYour mother has been dead for twelve years.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m aware.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd you named a gray kitten after her?\u201d<\/p>\n
Greg frowned. \u201cShe was a very dignified woman.\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked at the kitten. The kitten appeared to be trying to eat a loose strand of blue yarn.<\/p>\n
\u201cGreg.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAll right. Maybe the resemblance isn\u2019t physical.\u201d<\/p>\n
Under different circumstances, I might have laughed.<\/p>\n
Then I saw the hole again.<\/p>\n
My stomach tightened.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy are you digging?\u201d<\/p>\n
He looked confused.<\/p>\n
I pointed. \u201cThere. Why are you digging a hole while holding a kitten?\u201d<\/p>\n
Understanding reached him.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh. No.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo what?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not burying her.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI can see that, Greg. You\u2019re holding her.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not burying anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen explain the hole.\u201d<\/p>\n
He put the shovel down.<\/p>\n
\u201cListen.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTo what?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cJust listen.\u201d<\/p>\n
I folded my arms, but then something beneath the wooden garden edging made a faint scratching sound.<\/p>\n
A second later came a thin cry.<\/p>\n
My anger disappeared.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat was that?\u201d<\/p>\n
Greg pointed toward a narrow dark opening beneath the border.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnother kitten.\u201d<\/p>\n
I crouched.<\/p>\n
The opening was barely wider than my wrist. Loose soil surrounded it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are two?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAt least two. I think only two, but I\u2019m not completely certain.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another cry came from underneath the dirt.<\/p>\n
Greg\u2019s whole posture changed. The embarrassed husband vanished, replaced by someone intensely focused.<\/p>\n
\u201cSusan was close enough for me to reach,\u201d he said. \u201cThe other one crawled farther underneath. I\u2019m widening the entrance from the side so I don\u2019t collapse the soil on top of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked at the shovel.<\/p>\n
Then at the kitten.<\/p>\n
Then at Michael\u2019s blanket.<\/p>\n
Questions crowded against one another.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow long have they been here?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI found them yesterday.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd their mother?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI haven\u2019t seen her.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere did they come from?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy didn\u2019t you tell me?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLaura\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd why is our son\u2019s baby blanket wrapped around Susan?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can talk about everything after I get the other one out.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
He closed his eyes briefly.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlease.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo. You\u2019ve been leaving our bed for three weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou lied about your back.\u201d<\/p>\n
He glanced away.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou told me Michael\u2019s blanket had been donated.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was not my finest improvisation.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou expect me to find that funny?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGood.\u201d<\/p>\n
The kitten moved again.<\/p>\n
Greg automatically adjusted the blanket around her.<\/p>\n
The tenderness of that gesture unsettled me more than the lie.<\/p>\n
I had seen those hands support newborn heads. I had watched him walk endless circles through our old hallway with Michael against his shoulder. I remembered Greg asleep upright in the rocking chair with Emma tucked beneath his chin, terrified that moving would wake her.<\/p>\n
Those years had seemed endless while we lived them.<\/p>\n
Then they ended.<\/p>\n
I pushed the thought aside.<\/p>\n
\u201cGive her to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Greg looked surprised.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou said you need both hands.\u201d<\/p>\n
His expression softened with relief.<\/p>\n
He stood carefully and transferred the tiny bundle into my arms.<\/p>\n
\u201cSupport her underneath.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI raised two children with you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s smaller.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThank you for the warning.\u201d<\/p>\n
The kitten weighed almost nothing.<\/p>\n
That surprised me.<\/p>\n
Beneath the blanket was a fragile concentration of warmth, bone, and fur. She shifted against my palm, gave an indignant squeak, then pressed her face into the fold of wool.<\/p>\n
Suddenly I understood at least one thing.<\/p>\n
Whatever Greg had done, the blanket was keeping her warm.<\/p>\n
He returned to the flower bed.<\/p>\n
Instead of digging directly toward the sound, he scraped away dirt several inches to one side. Every movement was painfully slow.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere did you learn to do that?\u201d<\/p>\n
He stopped.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat. You clearly know what you\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI watched a few videos.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAt two in the morning?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLaura.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat wasn\u2019t an answer.\u201d<\/p>\n
The hidden kitten cried again.<\/p>\n
Greg bent closer.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know. I know. Give me a minute.\u201d<\/p>\n
The words were intended for the kitten, not me.<\/p>\n
I watched him.<\/p>\n
There was something practiced in the way he worked.<\/p>\n
Not expert, exactly.<\/p>\n
Familiar.<\/p>\n
That realization joined the growing pile of things I did not understand.<\/p>\n
After several minutes, Greg put the shovel aside and began removing soil with his fingers.<\/p>\n
His nails filled with dirt.<\/p>\n
The knees of his pajamas turned brown.<\/p>\n
\u201cFlashlight,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
I found his small flashlight near the border and aimed it into the opening.<\/p>\n
Something gray shifted inside.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI see it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Greg flattened himself against the ground and reached beneath the timber.<\/p>\n
The kitten retreated.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t chase it,\u201d I whispered.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re reaching directly toward it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWould you like to do this?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen perhaps allow the man lying face-first in a flower bed at two-thirty in the morning to concentrate.\u201d<\/p>\n
I almost smiled despite myself.<\/p>\n
Then the kitten cried sharply.<\/p>\n
Greg went still.<\/p>\n
\u201cEasy.\u201d<\/p>\n
He withdrew his hand and changed position.<\/p>\n
For another ten minutes, we worked in near silence.<\/p>\n
I held Susan.<\/p>\n
Greg widened the opening.<\/p>\n
The second kitten protested from underground with surprising determination.<\/p>\n
Finally Greg pushed his arm beneath the edging almost to his elbow.<\/p>\n
His face tightened.<\/p>\n
\u201cGot you.\u201d<\/p>\n
He slowly pulled backward.<\/p>\n
A tiny gray body appeared in his hand.<\/p>\n
The kitten came out furious, filthy, and alive.<\/p>\n
Greg sat back hard in the dirt.<\/p>\n
For one second he simply stared at it.<\/p>\n
Then his shoulders dropped.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, thank God.\u201d<\/p>\n
His voice broke slightly.<\/p>\n
I looked at him.<\/p>\n
Greg had cried when each of our children was born. He had cried at his mother\u2019s funeral. I had seen his eyes fill when Michael left for university, though he denied it afterward.<\/p>\n
Now tears stood openly in them.<\/p>\n
Over a kitten he claimed to have discovered yesterday.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou okay?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cFine.\u201d<\/p>\n
The answer came too quickly.<\/p>\n
He rubbed his face with the cleanest part of his sleeve and stood.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s get them inside.\u201d<\/p>\n
I followed him through the kitchen.<\/p>\n
As we entered the hallway, Greg turned toward the guest room.<\/p>\n
I expected to see the same room I had passed a hundred times.<\/p>\n
Instead, when he switched on the lamp, I realized my husband\u2019s secret was much larger than two kittens.<\/p>\n
I stared through the kitchen window at Greg kneeling in the dirt. There are moments when fear arrives dramatically, and there are moments when it comes as a quiet rearrangement … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13464,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-insightdrama"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13466"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13466\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13490,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13466\/revisions\/13490"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}